Lonely Souls
by The Drowned World
Summary: When a mysterious intruder penetrates the Dollhouse, DeWitt finds herself sending a team of Actives on their most dangerous assignment yet in a deadly game of cat and mouse; Victor is sent on a protective assignment where romance turns deadly. Season One.
1. Prologue: Intruders

**A/N:** Two weeks, two more episodes to go. I don't know about you guys, but my jaw is still firmly on the floor after "Getting Closer," so I'm not even going to go so far as to hazard a guess as to what _Dollhouse_ is going to throw at us before the end, because I'll most likely be wrong!

This story is sort of bittersweet, because I'm starting to like _Dollhouse_ more than both _Firefly_ and _Angel_ combined, which I never thought would happen, and although the second season has been truly amazing it's going to be weepy letting it go so soon. On the other hand, it's the type of story that gives us fans _tons_ of opportunities for fanfiction! Also, this is my first attempt at writing in this 'verse, so don't kill me too hard if it isn't exciting and mysterious enough – we can't all be part of the Whedon team (but we can dream, damn it).

**Timeline Note/Spoiler Warnings: "Lonely Souls" is set after "Haunted" and before "Briar Rose" during season one. Expect full spoilers up to that point. I'll refrain from foreshadowing or hinting at future revelations from season two.**

**Disclaimer:** _Dollhouse_ and all of its associated awesomeness was conceived by Joss Whedon (and partly by Eliza Dushku). It is owned by Mutant Enemy and Fox Network and all and everywhere in-between. I make no money, I'm just dabbling, blah blah blah. You know the drill.

**Warnings:** This story features non-graphic sex between both slash and gen couples – in layman's terms, this features both gay and straight sex, though it isn't described because I'm trying to keep this like an extended episode of the show, and _Dollhouse_ doesn't run on HBO. Sadly. Can you picture Tahmoh Penikett in an HBO show? Sigh. In any case, it also features slightly graphic violence and some bloodshed. You have been warned.

And, so, without further ado:

Dollhouse

_Lonely Souls_

Prologue: The Intruder

Adelle DeWitt was very rarely, if ever, nervous. She felt that she had good reason for this confidence in her safety and power: she was only in her forties, in excellent health, and worked at a high level of the Rossum Corporation (and therefore made more than most multimillionaires with every monthly stipend). She also operated the highly secretive Los Angeles branch of the Dollhouse, the security of which made America's famed Fort Knox look like child's play.

Therefore, it was justifiable that she was trembling now as the intruder faced her calmly from her own sitting area, pointing a gun at her head. Her entire suite of office space was black from loss of power, of which this man was obviously the cause. She was grateful that the Dollhouse beneath her was on its own power grid, or else the Actives would be nervous and she couldn't afford to upset the house. There were many things one could say under similar circumstances, which she considered quickly. _Who are you and how the bloody _hell_ did you get in here?_ just sounded so tritely villainous, and she quickly discarded it. Other options ran round her head, but she took a deep, calming breath instead, and relied on her usual cold formality to get her out of this situation as it had so many others.

"How may I help you?" she asked calmly, with a calculatingly charming smile. The dark figure who she guessed to be a man from the size chuckled lightly.

"They were right about you, Miss DeWitt," he said smoothly, confirming her suspicions about gender. His accent was faint but it was noticeable. She paid astute attention to every detail that she could make out. If she could get out this (and she had every intention of doing so with her life), she would need every detail at her recall to help her head of security, Boyd Langton, track this man down and end his life. _Provided he has not beat me to the punch and killed Langton already,_ she thought grimly.

"I beg your pardon?" she hinted, attempting subtly to get him to continue the conversation.

"You really are quite the piece of work," the man said after a moment, granting her wish. "I've just broken into the Dollhouse, one of the most highly secured places in America, one would guess, and broken through your private army of Rossum-backed goons to stand in your office, armed, and not even an outward flicker to tell how nervous you must be." There was a smirk in his voice, and DeWitt hated him fiercely for it. She decided that she might accompany her security on the later hunt and end his life herself.

"Whatever your sources of information may have informed you about me," she said after a moment, "they will no doubt have informed you that I am a businesswoman first and a pragmatist second. As you are already here, you have proved your considerable skills. I am quite under your power." She raised her empty hands to emphasize her lack of resistance even as she stroked his ego to lower his guard. "The fact that I am not dead yet would indicate that you want something from me, something that only this house can give you. It would be more expedient if we cut to whatever deal you wish to make."

"I can respect that," the man said. Her efforts at making him comfortable had worked, to an extent; he was no longer guarding his accent quite so well and he was most definitely of Greek origin, but he had been educated in America. That narrowed the list of potential suspects at who had given him his information down considerably. "You may have a seat." Internally she bristled at being ordered about in her own domain, but she smoothed her ruffled feathers. The man had the gun and she was no martial arts expert.

"Obviously, you need an Active for some sort of engagement," she began.

"Is that what you call them? Your 'Dolls?'" he asked disparagingly.

"That is what they are," she said frostily. Call her whatever you like, but Adelle DeWitt was nothing if not protective of her business as well as her charges. He snorted, but left it at that.

"Yes, I need an Active. Or, more than one. Which you will provide for me." His gun was still trained on her and condescension dripped from his tone. She wanted nothing more than to grab her crystal-handled paper cutter from her desk and drive it through his gut, but she kept still. He stood up, clearly lording his male power over her. No doubt he had been raised by an overbearing and domineering mother or elder sister. She filed this away in her mind along with the knowledge that his silhouette was not large. Though his face was masked by both his clothing and the dark in her office, she felt sure she could provide a satisfying sketch to the security section.

"You say that the Dollhouse can make any kind of person that I need?" he asked as he stared down at her. "I do hope that my informants were not lying to me."

"The Dollhouse can provide you with whatever you need," she said confidently.

"Good. I require at least five of your Actives. I need them...what was the word? Imprinted? Yes, imprinted, with the skills of master thieves, with enough to get them through the kind of lethal-response security system of which plans I will provide you with. I will also need one of them to become an assassin for a particular target. I need them to fetch what I need, eliminate the target, and then get out without a trace. They will have exactly twenty-five minutes in which to do this, or the security system will override and self-destruct the facility they will be infiltrating, killing everyone inside and destroying the information that I need – as well as your team of Actives. As you might guess, this would not be beneficial to either of us."

"And where would this take place?" she asked quietly.

"You may have heard of it – the Mayar Institute. The target is one Andrew Serogan."

"Are you completely out of your mind?" she asked incredulously, her shock causing her to lose some measure of her self-control. "The _Mayar_ Institute? Have you any idea the security of that building – and to assassinate one of the most conspicuous political figures of the entire _country_ of England?"

"I know exactly the security of that building," he said calmly, now seating himself. "I have the blueprints and codes for the security update happening in one week's time with me. You do not need to know the reason for the scientist's death, only that I want the information referenced in this file." He withdrew a thick manila folder from a hidden pocket in his jacket, his gun still trained on her with a steady hand. "Oh – and the Handlers that you send on these missions? None of them will be allowed to participate. My own security team will oversee your Actives – no possible breach of security should one of your men be listening to something they should not, you understand?" His tone was downright pleasant.

"That is out of the question! Do you have any idea what my employers would do to me if I went along with this? Frankly, I'd rather you shot me now than face them with this request! And even if they went along, the money involved would be more than your life is worth!" To her shock, he laughed uproariously.

"Oh, Miss DeWitt!" The son of a bitch actually slapped his knee! "Were you under the impression that I was _paying_ for this service like one of your clients? Oh, how trite! _You_ will be paying for this. I understand that the Dollhouse makes a considerable revenue from your particular services."

"You are completely insane," she whispered. He sobered abruptly, becoming deathly serious.

"No, madame – I am in fact completely sane. And you will do exactly as I say because if you do not I will detonate the bombs I have placed in your precious Dollhouse, killing every last one of your Actives and staff – including yourself. My men will be watching your institution in order to ensure that you follow my orders, else they will detonate. Oh, and it should be understood between us that any attempt to secretly evacuate this building will result in your immediate death." He spoke so calmly and matter-of-factly about it that she knew he meant every word.

"I certainly hope that you understand that the Rossum Corporation is not going to take your invasion lightly," she said after a moment, extending her hand for the information.

"If you appreciate your good health, Miss DeWitt, the Rossum Corporation will never know that this meeting occurred." She could hear his smile through his words and she gritted her teeth in impotent fury. "I have left contact information for when you have assembled my team, as well as a timeline. I certainly hope that your tech-man, Mr. Brink, is as good as my informants tell me, as you only have five days to assemble your Imprints."

"It will be carried out," DeWitt assured him with an icy smile.

"Very good," the man said. He inclined his head politely. "I am sure I will hear from you soon." With that, he melted into the shadows. She sat very still for three minutes and five seconds, counting every breath, until the lights suddenly flickered back on – a parting gift from her intruder, she reckoned, showing off that he held the Dollhouse firmly in his grip. She clutched her head and crossed to her cabinet. She washed down a strong shot of whiskey along with a pill for migraine relief, something she really shouldn't have done.

After a moment, the trembling in her limbs quieted to the point that she could walk straight, and she left her office to enquier as to the whereabouts of her security team. That she would be forced to play into this fool's gambit of a plan, she knew she had no choice. But her intruder had overplayed his hand. After completing this task, she would kill him herself. And she would do it with her bare hands.

* * *

"Ben, I understand that you don't want to do this, but _please_, just this once, accept your father's position and at least _pretend_ to be happy!"

"What drugs are you on and where can I get them?" Benjamin Thous called through his bedroom door. His stepmother, Arielle, was currently pounding on the door and he was debating turning the volume of his music up louder to compensate for the woman's gratingly whiny voice.

"I will not be spoken to like that!" Arielle yelled at the door, cursing the day that her husband had chosen to put locks on the bedroom doors. Benjamin, crafty little bastard that he was, had instantly swapped his doorknob out for a lock that neither of them had the key for. "Not while we're running this late, at least."

The door opened a crack and her new stepson glared at her balefully. He was dressed to the nines in a formal tuxedo with his hair slicked back, just as she'd asked, although a half an hour late. He would have looked positively handsome were his aristocratic features not permanently turned down in a scowl. "When can we leave the damn party?" he asked irritably.

"Oh, yes, you have such a hard life in our opulent penthouse suite, never having to work for your allowance," she snarled at him, completely losing patience. "You and your father don't get along, that's fine, but I will _not_ let your senseless anger ruin this opportunity! Have you any idea how important it is that this goes well for Jack?"

"Have you any idea how little I care?" he drawled. Her words had had absolutely no effect, which didn't surprise her. Arielle was Jack Thous' second wife, and she'd fast come to the conclusion that her stepson's mother had spoiled her son completely rotten. Add that to the fact that Benjamin and Jack Thous were polar opposites to the point that they fought about virtually _everything_ and the fact that Benjamin blamed Jack for his mother's death meant that Arielle had been unsympathetically thrust into the center of a familial war zone.

Arielle sighed as she simply hustled her stepson out of his room and toward the front door. Arielle had been raised in a lower middle-class family and the wealth of her new position as a senator's wife was new to her. She prayed that she never became as spoiled in her behavior as Benjamin. Sometimes, just sometimes, he'd let her glimpse something beneath the handsome rich boy that hinted at a far more serious person, but she'd given up long ago on ever getting to know that Ben. She was just stuck with Benjamin Thous, and it was hard to tell which one of them disliked each other more in that moment.

At that moment, they were rushing to pose on the arm of Senator Jack Thous at a benefit engagement at the glitzy Harmonium Hotel. Arielle's husband was more than a politician, however; he was also the head of a global organization that developed pharmaceuticals. "The good people of America think that they want a rags to riches politician story, but in reality, if you have no money they have no interest," Jack had told her cynically one day as he campaigned for reelection. Therefore, Jack was very interested in making and keeping more money than his monthly government stipend.

Arielle assumed that Jack's business interests were why they were meeting such shady people tonight. She didn't know their names, but there were at least six high-ranking people from all over the globe that would be rubbing shoulders with her husband tonight. He'd be looking for his beautiful new wife on his arm. Arielle was no fool – she knew that she was more ornament than any object of real passion for her husband. She'd chosen her life, however, and when she committed, Arielle committed for life. She fingered her wedding band as they reached the doors. She frowned when Alejandro, their security head, didn't open the door as he should have been waiting just outside the hall.

After a long moment, the door creaked open. "It's about time," Benjamin began impatiently, until the massively built Spanish guard slumped to the floor, blood pouring out of a bullet hole in his head. Arielle shrieked as two large men dressed all in black strode calmly into the apartment, their faces covered by black masks. Reacting on instinct, she shepherded Benjamin behind her, holding her arms out defensively.

"What do we do with the woman?" asked the shorter of the pair, his voice muffled by the mask.

"Fuck her. We're here for the kid. You wanna keep that pretty throat in one piece, lady, you're gonna move aside," said the taller of the two, drawing a nasty looking switchblade, the knife long and polished and sharp.

"Who the hell are you? What do you want?" she demanded, trying to back them both farther away from the men with knives.

"We're here for the brat," said the shorter one. He had a nasally, unpleasant voice that made her shiver.

"I won't let you hurt him," she snapped. Whatever motherly instincts she had were flowing through her and she could sense Ben staring at her in amazement behind her back. She stood straighter to face the intruders, her anger and fear giving her a sort of adrenaline-based courage.

"Woman, you have ten seconds to move out of my way until I start cutting things that you might not want this knife to touch," said the taller one, walking towards her with slow, malicious intent. Arielle trembled and Ben wordlessly clenched her hand in his. The entire floor of the building suddenly shook with shock as the hardened and bullet-proof glass windows shattered and five men in black gear swung in from zip-lines. She didn't even have time to scream in shock before one of their would-be kidnappers fired on the new intruders. The shot slammed into the one closest to the window and with a strangled scream the man plummeted to his death from their apartment on the twentieth floor.

Her knees felt weak and she stumbled as the new men mercilessly pumped the murderer's body full of bullets. Blood sprayed from his throat as one of the bullets hit his jugular artery and Ben stood stock still as brilliant red splattered across his face, painting a macabre Picasso. The apparent leader of the newcomers walked forward and aimed his machine gun at the other kidnapper's head.

"You have one chance to tell me who sent you," he barked in a cold, emotionless voice. The other kidnapper's body was twisting spasmodically on the floor and ruining the white carpet Arielle had just had cleaned, she noted absently. "Stop him!" the leader hollered, charging forward, but the other man had already collapsed, disgusting green viscous fluid foaming from his mouth. He was dead by the time he'd hit the floor. Arielle vomited where she lay.

"Suicide pill," the leader said in disgust. He turned to his three remaining men. "Everyone else alright?" If he had any concerns about the fate of his compatriot, he didn't show them. When the other three nodded, he gestured towards the mess. "Clean this up. See if you can find anything on the bodies; I doubt you will, but still." As the three moved forward with efficiency, the leader knelt next to Arielle, who was shuddering violently.

"It's alright, ma'am. We're from the Mayar Institute; we work with the men your husband is working with." Arielle didn't know whether to be comforted or even more terrified than she was before. A single droplet of an unknown man's blood trickled like a tear across Benjamin's face, but he didn't move to wipe it away. He didn't move at all.

**

* * *

**

**A/N:** Dum dum dum! Really, this is the first "real world" sort of excitement I've written in a while, and it was almost more fun than my usual sci-fi/fantasy/horror schtick. In any case, this chapter got edited twice as I pussyfooted around deciding whether to set it in the first season or the second season, so if I missed something that should be different and it catches your eye, please feel free to flag me down in a review or comment. Thanks!

Oooh! I learned how to do a horizontal bar! That shouldn't excite me as much as it does, should it? Sigh. Until next week, children -- it's time for your treatment... ;)


	2. Chapter 1: Imprints

**A/N:** I'm not going to waste time explaining why this took so long to update; if you want the full gory details you can check out the author's note on the latest chapter of my ongoing _Buffy the Vampire Slayer_ epic "the Passion of Angels and Demons." Suffice to say, this hasn't been the easiest year.

What I _will_ take time to say is that _Dollhouse_ will be sorely missed. "Epitaph Two: Return" was an epic series finale; I think there have only been three finales in my viewing experience that so fully wrapped up a series and left it open just enough for the fans to interpret things their own way, and those were _Dollhouse_, _Battlestar Galactica_, and _Charmed_. I'm so sorry to see _Dollhouse_ go, but that second season was freaking _epic_. I can't wait until the DVD is released!

Okay, so, now that that little fan thing is out of the way, I'm not going to take up any more of your time and I will now present:

Dollhouse

_Lonely Souls_

Chapter One: Imprints

**Author's Note:** _The sections that this chapter has been split into are set up the same way that the subsections of the season one episode "A Spy in the House of Love" were, from character to character._

_Adelle DeWitt_

The senator was visibly annoyed at the lack of privacy when he was seated in her chamber, but Adelle discounted it. The man was a very important client but he was also fairly easily manipulated – one of the reasons that Rossum had contributed so very generously to the man's political career. Like it or not, California state senator Jack Thous was deeply indebted to the Dollhouse...a debt that the Rossum Corporation fully intended to collect upon in the future, Adelle was sure.

"These sessions are usually _private_, Miss DeWitt," he pointed out cuttingly, drawing her attention back to him. She frowned slightly at his tone. Since the invasion and the subsequent stress of knowing that her attacker had her firmly by the hair, she didn't take lightly to people coming into her domain and presuming that they could order her about.

"We are upgrading our security, Mr. Thous," she said politely. "They will stay here and repeat nothing." He glared at her balefully but said nothing to her subtle disrespect by leaving off his formal title. Still, she'd accomplished her goal: the guards would stay and her client now knew not to take that tone with her, preferably ever again. "And now, to business," she said briskly. "You indicated that there was some sort of emergency situation you would like us to deal with?"

After a moment, he nodded. "My family was attacked last night in my home – my highly guarded home, I might add. The intruders killed my guards and tried to kidnap my son." It was clear from his tone that he was more upset by the fact of the break-in than the attempt on his son's life. Adelle said nothing and nodded for him to continue. "Thankfully, my new business partners have been keeping a close eye on my residence since I signed the contract with them, and it was all wrapped up. The security problem, however, remains."

"You wish for a guard?" she guessed.

"The kind that only you can provide," he acknowledged. "You told me once when I first started here that the difference between a hired man and an Active is that the Active will actually _want_ to protect what they are sent to guard. I need something like that, not just for my home and family but also for the business documents I keep in my home's safe."

"Yes, we can quite provide that," she said, pursing her lips. It would probably be best to not inform him of the results of the Dollhouse's last major guardian incident. "For how long, may I ask, would you expect this engagement to continue?"

"Until my business transaction is complete. After all of my research and holdings are in the hands of the future company, I expect my enemies will lose interest in me personally and merely go after the business," he said with a shrug.

"A logical conclusion," she nodded. "I do, however, notice that you have refrained from mentioning the name of the company you will be selling to."

"They asked me not to," he said bluntly. "They were...quite adamant that I not come to the Dollhouse for this, that they could guard me."

"But they failed to detect the intruders until they had already gotten past all security and very nearly escaped with your son," she pointed out, finishing his thought.

"Precisely. Besides, I'm not completely finished on the business deal. They'll have to bow to this if they want me to go through with it."

"I see you've not forgotten the role of ruthless businessman," she said with a smile.

"People don't get to the positions that you and I hold without shoving the competition out of their way and off the ladder entirely," Thous said coldly.

"Quite," she murmured, thinking of her own trials to get to her current position. "Well, then. I'll need a timeline, as well as your choice of Active in order to write up your bill."

"Do you have the dossiers with you? I'd like to finish this today; I have a lunch I need to go to with that idiot Perrin," he said, sitting straighter. He was referring to the other senator, the democrat, Daniel Perrin, a relatively unknown character who had yet to seek out the services of the Dollhouse. It amused her that the majority of her political clients were republicans.

"Of course, Mr. Thous," she said, hiding her smile. She pulled the binder carrying the names and photographs of the Actives from its place on the table and opened it for him. Echo's file was naturally on top; she was the most requested of her Actives. Adelle frowned as the sun hit the photograph gently, and a memory from one of Echo's engagements more than a month before came to the forefront.

"_It's not finished," Echo said calmly, staring up at her in a completely prepossessed way that bespoke of deeper thought, of utter disregard for how 'blank' an Active should look after being wiped. Adelle looked closer at the painting and realized with absolute astonishment that the childish painting was an exact depiction of Echo's last aborted imprint – to be called as the 'wife' of Joel Mynor, their annual client. This year's engagement, however, had been aborted thanks to the ever-resilient FBI agent Paul Ballard, who was determined to bring the Dollhouse down._

"_Would you like it to be?" Adelle had asked, unsure what else to say. Echo looked up at her eyes boldly and nodded._

Adelle came out of her reverie with a start as the senator flipped past Echo's page with a frown. No doubt he remembered ordering her for some romantic entanglement or other. She would have to do something about Echo eventually, Adelle knew. They couldn't risk another situation like Alpha. But Echo showed no unstable signs, the way Alpha had retrospectively. She was..._aware_ in her wiped state as no other Active had been before or after. In removing the overlying personality of Caroline, somehow, Echo had taken the core values of her original personality and was crafting her own _being_.

While it was fascinating to watch, it was creating problems. Still, Adelle somehow felt that it would be wrong to send Echo to the Attic. Not at this point, not yet. She took a drink of cold water and watched as the senator seemed to settle on an Active.

"This one looks promising," he said aloud, moving the picture toward her. He'd selected Victor, one of the the more popular male Actives. Adelle nodded lightly as she put thoughts of Victor's expressive eyes out of her mind – something she had been trying to do since her own indiscretion with the imprinting technology had torn her focus, making her house open to invasion from within thanks to that betraying toad Dominic. But Dominic was in the Attic now, and she was doing her best to put her pathetic near-addiction to her own wish-fulfillment services behind her. It was inappropriate to even _think_ about _that_ while still within the Dollhouse.

"Yes, Victor is a very good choice. He's quite popular," she said aloud instead. "Is this your choice?"

"How badly is the popularity going to affect my budget?" Thous asked, looking tired.

"Only by a few thousand. The engagement will be flagged as highly risky, anyway," she said as she quickly calculated the additional security fees.

"Whatever you want to charge is fine. Send the bill to my man who usually handles my books; he'll know which account to draw it from. My wife and son are traveling to our vacation home on Virginia Beach, so I'll expect the guard to beat them there – what with all the security, they won't get there until the day after tomorrow," he said as he gathered his briefcase and jacket to leave.

"It will all be handled. Your man will have a dossier with Victor's imprint details waiting for you so you will know how to address him and all other pertinent information," she assured him, escorting him to the door. She smiled as he left, but the smile left her face as soon as the door shut. She sighed. It was unseemly to be grateful that she didn't have to send Victor on the probable suicide mission that her lovely guest the other night had set up. She would have to get past this attachment to her Actives.

"Make sure that Victor, Sierra and Echo are all free," she told one of her guards. "And have Topher and Mr. Langton brought to my office." The nodded as they left. Other than being highly popular, Sierra had shown to a lesser degree Echo's penchant for going beyond the parameters of her engagements to ensure that they were finished. Perhaps, with the two of them leading her merry band of thieves, this nightmare would have a successful finish.

* * *

_Victor_

Victor was watching Sierra surreptitiously. She seemed to be aware of it after a while, because she gave him a hesitant smile. When Sierra smiled at him, it was a very good thing. It made the lights seem a little brighter. Victor was still unsure why this was, but he was sure that the reason was also a very good reason. He was eating lunch. Lunch today was chicken salad. He liked salad. It was crispy and fresh and the dressings made funny tangs in his mouth.

Sierra had finished eating, and was watching the small waterfall next to the pond. He wondered if she would let him sit next to her. That would be an even better thing. He took a bite of his salad with a smile. Echo was sitting with him and that was a good thing too. He liked Echo. Not as much as he liked Sierra though. He wondered if that was a bad thing. Echo didn't think so. Echo saw things that other people didn't. She was very smart. Sometimes he wondered if that was why she looked so sad sometimes.

"Sierra seems happy," Echo noted now as she too ate her salad.

"Yes, she is. She'll try to do her best," Victor said. "This salad is very good."

"I like salad," Echo said with a smile. But her eyes were following something behind his head, and he turned to see what it was. The other people were coming towards them. Victor liked Selena Ramirez. She made him feel safe. He trusted her. She gave him a smile as she and the large man who Echo liked came up to them.

"Victor, would you like a treatment?" Selena asked him.

"I'd like that very much," Victor said happily. He liked salads but treatments were even better. He didn't remember quite why he liked treatments, but he remembered that he always felt better about everything after they were over. "Is Echo getting a treatment too?" he asked. "Can we get it together? I always feel better after my treatments."

For some reason, the other people looked surprised that he knew that Echo was getting a treatment. Didn't the other people always come to give people treatments? "Echo will get hers after yours, Victor," said Mr. Johnson, Echo's other person. He confused Victor. Sometimes he thought that the nice dark man Mr. Langton was Echo's other person. He was much nicer than Mr. Johnson. Johnson never met his eyes, like Victor and his friends made him uncomfortable, somehow. Victor though that this was not very nice. He wondered if he was not his best. Johnson sounded hesitant. "There's only one chair, remember?"

"Oh, of course," Victor said. He didn't feel very smart after saying that. "I'm sorry." He had just wanted to be his best and let Echo be her best. He looked at the ground, dejected.

"It's perfectly alright, Victor. It's nice that you wanted Echo to have a treatment too," Selena said kindly, and he felt much better. Maybe he could be his best after his treatment. He took Selena's hand and smiled at Echo as he left. She smiled back at him but her eyes were on something else again. Victor gave Sierra a wave and she waved back. He hoped that she was enjoying the water. He liked the water. Maybe after his treatment he could swim in the pool. Doing thirty laps helped him be his best.

"They're all still waving and smiling at each other," Selena commented to Johnson as they climbed the stairs. She sounded worried about something. Wasn't having friends a good thing? Victor wasn't sure what to say so he kept climbing.

"Topher says it's nothing to worry about. No one's been permanently impacted by Alpha, as far as he can tell," Johnson said. Victor wondered what an Alpha was.

"I meant Victor and Sierra. I thought Topher had them scrubbed a while back," Selena persisted. Scrubbed? Maybe he hadn't cleaned as much as he should have when he showered? He tried to discreetly smell himself but he gave this up as a lost cause. They'd reached the top of the stairs and were going into the very interesting room where Topher lived. Topher was a strange man, but he had lots of fun toys to play with.

"Topher can do his job," Johnson said firmly.

"Victor is ready for his treatment now," Selena told Topher as the doors closed. Johnson left, maybe to go get Echo. Victor hoped that he was getting her for a treatment.

"Thank God," Topher said, sounding cranky. He was a tall and strange-looking man with blond hair and he dressed in strange clothes. Victor was glad that he didn't have to do whatever Topher did because it seemed to make Topher not very happy and his clothing wasn't as comfortable as Victor's. "DeWitt's been going crazy about some super seekrit thing she's cooked up and he's one of seven different imprints I have to do in the space of about two fracking hours!"

"She's the boss," Selena commented as she guided Victor to the strange chair. It was comfortable though and Victor knew that he was going to get a treatment soon. Maybe Topher would let him play with one of his toys? Victor smiled at that as the chair tipped backwards. Soft blue light flickered around his eyes and then there was a strange pinching in his head that suddenly _really hurt_ and he _didn't_ like this

and

then

nothing.

* * *

_Topher_

Topher Brink was _not_ having a good day. In fact he was having a day of monumental suckiness, the kind of day where he considered cooking up a big fat computer virus of Y2K proportions and unleashing it on the Dollhouse just so he could have a day off away from his GI Jane cold hard bitch of a boss and everything that was making a not-so-happy genius. He took a big swig of his coffee and cursed because he noticed that Ivy had swapped it for decaf, the conniving witch. She maintained that he was more obnoxious and irritating when he was caffeinated. Considering that she was the most brilliant of the computer techs this side of the seaboard, he'd have a hard time convincing DeWitt that he needed a different apprentice techie.

That morning, he'd been summoned into her palatial office suite to see five security guards and Boyd Langton looking like she'd just whipped them six ways from Sunday. First she'd laid into him about the power outage the night before, which was _so_ not his fault because he handled genius-level technical stuff, not stupid electrician technical stuff. When he'd pointed this out to her, she'd gone very still in that very scary British bitch way that she had and said "You do whatever I order you to do, Mr. Brink. I allow you your freedoms thanks to your considerable technological advances but never, _ever_ assume that you are indispensable."

That little line had stung and almost made him consider planting that virus just to see how well she'd fare when he refused to fix it for her. Then again, the corporation that the woman worked for was even scarier than she was on a really _really_ bad day, so he decided to withhold his righteous vengeance until he was sure of an escape plan.

She'd then calmed down enough to tell them all about the scary man who'd crept in last night and apparently killed one handler and two security guards all without anyone noticing it. He'd also managed to plant surveillance in the Dollhouse and bombs underneath it, then held DeWitt at gunpoint and given her an executive order which she had no choice but to complete if she didn't want them all to turn into rubble. Topher, for one, was a huge fan of the _not_ blowing up plan.

That was, until she'd given him a list of imprints she wanted and the Actives assigned to them and informed him that they were all to be ready at the end of the next day, with Victor's done and imprinted before noon the following day.

Topher had waited until getting to his office to explode. He was fairly impressed with how loud he'd shouted, as it had prompted Langton to come in and yell at him for upsetting the Actives below. Why did no one appreciate exactly what it was that he did? Why did no one even _try_ to grasp the very basic boiled-down concepts that he tried to give them?

Creating an imprint was nothing like getting on his computer and inserting some search terms into a database. It wasn't like he could whip up a gun-toting cheerleader in a matter of minutes, it took _time. _Each of his imprints was a real _person_, with thoughts, dreams, passions, foibles...Each layer of personality was something new. The Rossum company had scanned millions of people to give him a basis to work with but what he was really doing was the equivalent of brainwashing compressed to a hyper-efficient five minutes until each Active that was imprinted truly _became_ the imprint. And that was just the personality part of the deal, not even _touching_ the physicality like muscle memory and skill imprints, etc, etc...

Now DeWitt hands him a dossier and expects him to whip up _seven_ completely unique personalities all within the space of a day and a half? And his assistant had the _nerve_ to give him _decaf_ coffee?! _One day, I will have my revenge on this place_, he thought viciously as he sat down at the computer. _One day they will all suffer until they bow to my will!_ Trying to can the maniacal thoughts he indulged in every once in a while (okay, every day), he took a large bite of chocolate and set to work.

**888**

As Victor succumbed to the imprinting process, Topher sighed and mainlined another shot of caffeinated coffee. Ivy thankfully refrained from saying anything, as he was liable to bite her head off her scrawny shoulders if she tried. Topher hated to say it, but he was warming up to this whole assistant idea, because without her help in piecing together the similarities in the personalities they were creating, he would never have gotten DeWitt's project done on time. Not that he was planning on telling her that any time soon.

"So, who am I escorting?" Ramirez asked after Victor shut his eyes. Topher waved Ivy over. He had no energy left for talking and he was planning on collapsing on his cot for about twelve hours as soon as DeWitt approved his imprints.

"His name is Max Rowe, and he's been a special forces operative for the army for a few years before he retired and became a private security consultant. He's big on doing his duty and he's got enough experience and kung fu skills on him to take down fifteen men, not to mention a love of big guns," Ivy said as she handed the handler the information dossier she'd printed out. "Everything else should be in there, including your plane tickets because the client is expecting you two to beat his wife and son out to Virginia and Max will want to have plenty of spare time to check the house out before his charges get there."

"Sounds solid," Ramirez acknowledged as she flipped through the paperwork. "You two look like you've been busy." Ivy, perhaps sensing the impending vocal holocaust that Topher was about to unleash, rushed over with a fresh cup of coffee and a Three Musketeers bar. He glared at her balefully before chomping on the chocolate and washing it down with fresh black burn a pit in your stomach stunt your growth coffee goodness.

"It's been a long couple of days," Ivy said smoothly.

"I'll say. DeWitt's been stepping up security like hell ever since that blackout. I heard that it could have been Bicks; no one's seen him for a couple of days. Maybe he tried to skip town," Ramirez said, as she waited for the imprinting to finish. It wouldn't be long now, maybe a couple of minutes or so. Topher focused on that rather than the fact that Bicks had been grabbed by the mouth from behind to stop his screams as he was stabbed to death in the hallway not twenty feet from where they were standing.

"He wouldn't get far," Ivy noted.

"Not at all. If that's what happened I wouldn't be surprised if he was dead already," Ramirez said dismissively. "This isn't the kind of job you just walk away from." Victor took a last shuddering gasp behind them and as one they all turned to watch the gentle blue light of the imprinter fade and the chair rise to an inclined position. He blinked once.

No matter how many times he saw it, even though he knew exactly what was happening (and indeed had even helped to design and revolutionize the machinery and technology involved), Topher was still a little gobsmacked when the imprinting process finished. On what had just minutes ago been a completely blank slate there was now an entire novel, the complete life, personality, hopes, dreams, philosophies of a human being, an entirely new person, a life that he, Topher, had created in a sense. The giddiness of the beginnings of a god complex kicked in during moments like these.

"Max" stood up. His back was erect and his posture military as he flexed his fairly impressive muscles. Where his dark brown eyes had once been large and trusting they were now hardened and knowing, wary of everyone in the room. When his eyes fixed on his handler he instinctively relaxed. "Is the treatment over?" Max asked, his voice deep with just a hint of the American heartland in his accent.

"Yes, Mr. Rowe," Ramirez said smoothly. "We need to get you dressed; we have to catch this plane so you have enough time to check your perimeter."

"Good," he said, glancing at Topher with obvious distaste. "I hate hospitals." Topher bit back a comment as Max Rowe strode confidently from his office, Ramirez trailing behind. She was one of the better handlers at accepting the imprinting process; she understood that she was essentially dealing with a different person every time, whereas emotional handlers like Boyd Langton wanted to see the Active that had been left in the machine. Topher snorted at his own sentimentality of moments before and went to catch an hour long nap as Ivy began to finish the last of DeWitt's crew members.

* * *

_Raven_

DeWitt watched as Sierra dipped under the chair. There were five other Actives waiting in Topher's antechamber and playing with the various childish toys that he kept there. Ivy assured her that nothing was either breakable or harmful to the Actives. In the end, DeWitt had chosen the two polar extremes: Echo would return from her engagement for the space of two days and be checked over before joining Sierra to be the team leaders, each charged with a separate task to oversee. They would each have two different teammates under their commands. She'd chosen Foxtrot, Charlie, Delta and Tango as the four accompanying Actives – the four Actives who had shown the most docile reactions to the Dollhouse's treatments.

Sierra was currently being imprinted as Raven, a ruthless assassin who the Rossum Corporation had had scanned after she'd been caught by the CIA (before she'd been executed, of course). As long as their was the right kind of reward at the end, Raven would not go off-mission. She would do what she did best and eliminate the target.

Echo, on the other hand, was being given an updated version of the "Taffy" personae that had once been employed on a successful thieving operation. The fact that that engagement had been disrupted in possibly the worst way by Alpha was something that DeWitt refused to think about; Taffy had gotten the job done and quickly before Alpha's intervention and Topher assured her that he had encoded their signal so well that even Alpha wouldn't be able to pull off his same trick twice. Taffy would handle the theft of the documents that her intruder was so desperately after. She would also have a secondary imprint to finish Raven's job if she should fail.

Topher was asleep and she was inclined to keep him that way if Ivy's description of his attitude was accurate. She was aware that she'd given him a daunting task and from what she'd seen so far he'd risen to the occasion magnificently. She'd have to see to it that he received a lovely bonus at the end of this ordeal. Provided, of course, her superiors didn't find out that she was breaking protocol by not informing them of the entire situation and have her...removed. Langton had insisted that they simply locate and disarm the bombs, but she was fairly certain that the Dollhouse was bugged and so flatly refused him.

She was working on the situation, but this particular enemy was like a chess player – one had to first out-think in order to outmaneuver. This was the kind of combat that she excelled at, the kind that made her such an excellent fencer. The thought of driving her epee through his groin brightened her outlook on the day considerably. She watched as Sierra's imprint ended and the chair tipped forward.

Raven's eyes snapped open and she stretched, catlike, before moving fluidly to stand upright. "Well, this is different." Her sombre, faintly Francophone accent sounded odd coming from Sierra's mouth. "You weren't kidding about that deal you gave me in jail, were you?"

"No, of course not," DeWitt said. She'd requested Ivy to leave them alone for this particular situation. Raven had to be handled delicately.

"That means I've been executed already," the assassin said tonelessly. She glanced around her. "So this is the infamous Dollhouse, then. Looks more like a spa."

"We try our best to make the Actives' environments as relaxing as possible," DeWitt allowed. Raven nodded. Her sharp eyes flicked around, taking in possible escape routes and weapons. There were many, but there weren't any guards in the room with them. Relaxing her tensed muscles slightly, Raven turned back to DeWitt.

"I'll assume that you didn't call me back or whatever it is that you did because you wanted a chat about your decorating," she said, her voice brisk and businesslike. "What exactly is it that you need?"

"You seem to be taking this all in good stride," DeWitt said cautiously.

"I'm _dead_, dear; there aren't a lot of other ways that I can take this other than as a chance to cheat god of a few extra hours." She smiled unpleasantly, and DeWitt knew that it was her imagination that her teeth seemed sharper. She restrained a shudder and Raven smirked knowingly. Irritated at her own reaction, Adelle stepped forward and handed the woman the file on the target, Andrew Serogan.

"This the mark?" Raven asked as she flipped through the folder. DeWitt nodded wordlessly. "He's high profile. This institution looks pretty advanced. I'm gonna need to take a look through your tech and the weaponry before I head out."

"We'll have everything that you need," DeWitt assured her.

"No doubt," said the other woman, again with that damnable smirk. "With this kind of timeline, I'm going to need a full twenty-four hours to make sure I'm up to shape. I've been out of commission for a while." She seemed to find this terribly amusing. "And then, of course, there's the manner of payment."

"That is what I was getting to," DeWitt said. "You will be required to break your usual protocol on this assignment and you will be taking two partners in with you."

"Out of the question," said Raven flatly. "I work alone and I don't get caught when I'm on my own. I don't have time to be sheltering whatever would-be killers you whipped up in this brain blender behind me; I need to get my mark and get out."

"With all due respect, you _did_ get caught," Adelle reminded her calmly. Raven regarded her with cold rage in her eyes. "This particular client has certain requirements I am obligated to fulfill. One of them is sending you with backup to make sure that you both get through the private army that the Mayar Institute employs and also that you have someone to finish the contract should you be unable to finish it yourself."

"Are you implying that I can't do this on my own?" Raven asked, smiling dangerously. There was a harsh, dark coldness to her eyes that told DeWitt that her life could very well be in danger if she answered this incorrectly.

"I am implying that the only reason you stand here before me now is because of _me_, and therefore you will fulfill the contract that I am giving you in order to receive your payment," she said carefully.

"What payment? After this is done you'll just haul me back here so that I can be ejected from this lovely new body. Don't presume that I'm a fool just because a team of Americans got lucky once," Raven warned her.

"Oh, I believe that I have something to offer you that you desperately want from me," Adelle said casually.

"And what's that?"

"Two things: time, and revenge."

"I beg your pardon?" Raven asked, intrigued.

"I am offering you a one-time bargain," Adelle said, leaning in closer to her, catching her up in her words and her eyes. "You will have one extra week in this body, simply living on borrowed time, for completing this assignment. During that week, I expect to have one final assignment for you to complete. And should you fulfill both contracts successfully, I will give you the names and dwellings of the two CIA agents who oversaw both your capture and your subsequent execution."

Raven froze, and DeWitt knew that she had her. She had no intention of actually _letting_ Raven do this, of course; the cleaning up of the deaths of two prominent American Intelligence agents was likely to be messy and would merely inflame persistent gnats like the disgraced yet still annoyingly persistent Paul Ballard to further investigate her operation. In the position she was in, she couldn't afford that kind of scrutiny, not while the Dollhouse was in danger – not to mention she herself.

"That's a big thing to offer for someone who claims to represent a beneficent organization," the mercenary said, sizing DeWitt up. "Who's to say that you won't try to backtrack this on me?"

"Because I have too much at stake on this engagement and the last thing I would like to risk is you going rogue and damning my operation," Adelle said smoothly. "This is, however, a one-time offer. Your personality is, for the moment, completely intact, and this is the only chance _you_ will have to fulfill this reward. After this, all of your considerable skills and talents will be integrated into different, original personalities to suit the Dollhouse's needs."

"Then I'm in," Raven said after a moment. "But I'm sure you knew that." DeWitt smiled, smoothly accepting the victory. She cursed internally, however, because there was something far too knowing in Raven's eyes and there was too much at stake to risk defying the intruder's orders and sending Sierra's handler in to ensure that Raven didn't go off-mission. She was counting on her charge's vanity in that Raven had never _not_ finished a job – it was that self-same dedication to both her work and her legend that had gotten her trapped by the CIA in the first place.

The wretched part of the situation was that Adelle truly had no other choice. She shook the woman's hand and left her to her handler to get suited up as Ivy prepped the other Actives for imprinting.

* * *

_Taffy (Version 2.0)_

The two teams assembled to be put under Sierra and Echo's control were made up of four Actives – two male and two female, each unremarkable as Actives were meant to be. DeWitt signed off the usage and secretly withdrew heavily from one of her many private accounts to cover the expenses: machine usage, electricity usage, clearing the Actives' schedules, clothing, utilities, weaponry...She took a painkiller for the headache and watched as Foxtrot, Charlie, Delta and Tango each underwent a form of technological rebirth.

As Ivy had explained to her after Topher had apparently passed out in his bolthole behind his office, each of the four were nearly exactly like the other, with small quirks and changes to make the personalities more believable. Each had a non-questioning nature and a penchant for following orders, so even if Raven or Taffy questioned their similarities it wouldn't trouble any of the four. DeWitt signed off on the imprint and nodded without really listening. She trusted her staff.

"You're sure you want to go through with this?" Langton asked from behind her, startling her as Tango – now Angela – stood up and was led quietly away by her handler.

"We've been over this more than once, Mr. Langton, and I am not one given to second-guessing. This is what we have decided to do, and so we are doing it," she snapped. He was silent, but he raised an eyebrow in silent challenge. She reminded herself that she valued this questioning more than Dominic's unquestioning obedience – obedience at least before he had sold them out to the NSA. "I have an endgame for this, Mr. Langton, which I cannot speak of just yet. As for now, let the chess game continue. The kings in this game have yet to come out from hiding."

"Yes," he said, watching as Echo was brought in. DeWitt smiled as she saw him bristle slightly at Johnson, Echo's new handler. Echo was special, and Langton, with all of his conflicted morals and controlled self-disgust, had nurtured that specialness for as long as he had been her handler, outperforming everyone in the field. This was, of course, one of many reasons why she had promoted him to her new head of security. But it was also interesting watching him let Echo go; rather, she imagined, like watching a nervous father allow his daughter to begin dating.

Echo regarded Langton with her serious gaze before allowing herself to be led docilely to the chair. Ivy may have missed it, but from Langton's gaze he had not. This was not the first time that Adelle had wondered exactly how much Echo had actually been imprinted upon her new handler. The fact that Johnson didn't register Echo's lack of devotion to him and her attention to Langton didn't speak well for the longevity of his position. Putting the troubling thought of Echo's further displays of cognitive development from her mind, Adelle turned instead to Ivy's reporting.

Once Echo began downloading her new personality, DeWitt waved Ivy on to continue. "Well, Taffy is a personality used a few times when a really tricky theft job was contracted," Ivy started. "This time, however, she's also going to have a sleeper trigger programmed into her so that Taffy 2.0 can take over in case the secondary objective needs completing. Also, this version of Taffy has a far more comprehensive knowledge of explosives that should come in handy when the target building is demoed."

"Very good," Adelle said. She turned to Johnson. "You've been briefed by Mr. Langton on the procedure?"

"Yes, ma'am," said Johnson, not asking questions. She frowned slightly as she nodded. A handler needed to place the needs and health of his Active above all else – a deliberate order from the top to break protocol and allow an Active into a potentially dangerous situation with no handler to guide or protect her should at the very least encourage one to ask questions, or to suggest a less dangerous alternative. Langton's lips pursed slightly as well, and she nodded to him as she left. Perhaps she'd have Johnson removed from the Dollhouse.

The chair stopped whirring and Langton turned with the others in the room to watch as Echo slowly opened her eyes and stretched like a feline in heat, deliberately lascivious, knowing they were watching. "Hello, Taffy," Ivy said carefully. "How are you feeling?"

"Blue skies," said Taffy with a shrug as she stepped up from the chair. Langton watched, unnerved as always as Echo's body adopted a new set of mannerisms, a new accent, a different gleam behind the eyes, a new carriage. She truly had become a different person. The effect was eerie. Taffy, for her part, didn't seem to care much about the others in the room. "So, what's the job and where's my money?"

Ivy led her out of the room and Johnson followed behind. Langton frowned at the man. He was far too lackadaisical about his job, particularly as Echo's handler. He thought that DeWitt had noticed it as well; after this mess had been ironed out he'd bring it up to her that Johnson be replaced. He thought back to the first time that Taffy had jumped out of that chair and the nightmare that had followed. Still, DeWitt assured him that the Taffy conglomerate personality was the best female thief at their disposal, and had been utilized successfully several times. Provided Alpha didn't find a way to interfere this time, this would all work out the way that DeWitt visualized – not that she was sharing her plans with him.

As her chief of security, he frowned on that. As the practical man that he'd been raised to be, he allowed the fact that she had an nerves of steel, bones of iron and whiskey for blood. He nearly pitied the man that had been foolish enough to engage Adelle DeWitt as an enemy. He remembered what she had done to Joe Hearn when he had violated Sierra, and through Sierra, DeWitt herself. Despite his personal feelings about the Dollhouse, Boyd knew that DeWitt genuinely cared about the dolls under her command. In the nearly more than a year that he had worked here, Dominic was the first he'd seen sent to the Attic. He knew that a less compassionate woman would have eliminated Echo long ago.

Boyd headed down to the house proper and watched as five or six of the dolls began a new series of tai chi with their instructor. They moved with grace and precision. He looked past them and saw Dr. Claire Saunders looking out of her office, as if checking that all of the dolls were present and well. Boyd wondered about his confused feelings for the woman.

Dr. Saunders was haunted by the scars that decorated her face, scars that the rogue Active Alpha had put there on his murderous rampage that ended with his escape from the Dollhouse. Claire was one of only two people that Alpha had come into contact with and spared during that night – the other was Echo. Echo was the only one that had escaped unscathed, then one with whom Alpha seemed to be fixated upon for reasons that Boyd could only speculate at. Claire genuinely cared for the dolls, but she was so afraid of ever leaving the Dollhouse that he believed she had serious motivation for wanting to keep all of the dolls in the house where she could look after them.

She was beautiful, and compassionate, but also afraid, and lonely, and while half of him wanted to protect her, to talk to her, to share his thoughts and feelings about the confused morality of this strange little zen garden, the other half of him warned him that she was not what she seemed and that he should stay away from her. Still, she looked after Echo the way that he did, trying to protect her growing awareness from DeWitt and the other higher-ups. Claire seemed to feel him staring, and she looked up and caught his eye.

Boyd nodded to her and walked away as she quickly went back to her office.

**888**

**A/N:** I quite liked this chapter, actually; I'm pleased with how all of the breaks turned out. For those of you who need more Echo-centric, I'm sorry, but she's a secondary character in this story – not that she won't be important to the finale, but for this story to work I need the main imprints to be in Victor and Sierra. Have no fear, though; she has her own part to play in this little drama. Also, because I can't help myself (I love him so much), Paul Ballard will make his own entrance into the story in a unique way after the next chapter's update.

Reviews are appreciated, especially as this is my first _Dollhouse_ fanfiction attempt and I'd like to _not_ frak it up beyond all reason!


	3. Chapter 2: Bloodlines

**A/N:** I was taking a break from my other endeavors and I thought, oh, I'll just write some more _Dollhouse_. Ha. Here's the entire next chapter, written in two days. There's that. I also have the first of the interludes done, so I'm just going to go ahead and post both of them together, because the "Interlude" chapters aren't all that long. This chapter isn't as heavy on the action, but don't worry: the next chapter will move along towards explosives!

Thanks to all of my readers and reviewers – and this chapter is, as ever, dedicated to my reviewers: you keep me going!

So, without further ado:

Dollhouse

_Lonely Souls_

Chapter 2: Bloodlines

Benjamin felt sick as he got off the plane, but he fought off the impending sickness and jet lag. He didn't fly well, but he'd be damned if he let his father see another of his many failings. Beside him, Arielle lightly brushed his hand as she walked past to greet her husband. She'd brought motion sickness tablets with her and wordlessly slipped them into his pocket on the plane. Benjamin didn't know what to think about that. Things were changing around him that he didn't know.

He knew he was shallow, and callow, and selfish. It was an easy way to be. Everything available at his fingertips and he didn't have to think about the things that he didn't want to think about. He did his part, smiled for the public and helped his father campaign and put his name on the Christmas checks that went to starving AIDS infested infants somewhere in Africa he couldn't even name. That counted for something, right?

When your life is lived a thousand miles ahead of everyone else, it's easy to be arrogant. It wasn't like his father had to worry about paying taxes or anything. He was in the senate, set for life. Arielle was his trophy wife to replace Benjamin's mother. Or so he'd thought. Now, though, he didn't know what to think about her. He'd fallen apart inside after what had happened at the apartment. But she had protected him, sheltered him, and now she was even shielding him from his father. It was easier to keep moving, Benjamin thought.

Jack Thous stood straight and tall, his posture formal and his grip military. It was something he'd beat into Benjamin's hide to display to the public and not anything he ever relaxed from. From the reticent way that Arielle kissed him hello and the awkward hug that ensued, Benjamin thought disdainfully that the sex was likely just as stiff and formal as anything else in Jack Thous' life. Even him.

"I'm glad that you're both alright," his father said presently, jerking Benjamin out of his reverie. "Our house is already secured."

"The apartment was secured, too," Benjamin noted.

"Don't take that tone of voice with me," Jack snapped, and Arielle winced as his fingers dug into her arm. Ordinarily, Benjamin would have responded, but seeing Arielle's look in his direction he said nothing. His father looked surprised. Benjamin wondered in melancholy whether there actually was a time when he and his father and his mother had all been together, when he and his father hadn't hated each other, or if that was just some dream he'd invented for himself.

"In any case," Jack continued after a moment, "I've hired a private security firm, not one that we usually use. The house will already be secure for the two of you."

"You're not staying with us?" Arielle asked, disengaging her arm from him and looking at him with open disapproval – likely a first for her.

"I'm sorry. There's business that needs taking care of back in Los Angeles. I came out to see you off. I'll be driving you to the house," he said dispassionately.

"Fine," she said, matching his tone. She turned and walked away without a backward glance to see to the luggage being loaded in the cars. Benjamin smirked slightly. Maybe this new, emerging Arielle wasn't such a bad thing – anyone who could stand up to his father and not let him walk all over them the way he walked over everything else in his life was a bonus. Dissatisfied with his new wife's behavior, Jack stalked toward the car and made the guard standing next to it check it over for bombs or other sabotage again.

Once upon a time he might have been hurt that his father hadn't even bothered to ask whether he was alright. Then again, if he _had_ been kidnapped, he had to wonder whether or not his father would have even paid the ransom demand. Jack made an impatient motion in his direction and Benjamin sighed as he climbed into the limousine. Arielle was looking out of the window and Jack was looking at her, seeming rather discomfited that she wasn't fawning over him as usual. Benjamin dug out his iPod and plugged in the headphones.

He turned it up to drown out the sound of the moving car and tried to ignore the glare his father shot in his direction. _This is going to be a long trip_...

* * *

Max arrived at the Thous family vacation home at 10:00 in the morning, just as the sun was finishing rising over the sea. He frowned in distaste at the extravagance. The house was a huge, three-story building that seemed to have an entire wall facing the sea built out of glass – a blatant security threat, considering that the last attempt on kidnapping had gone through a high-rise apartment window. If there were any bedrooms on that side of the house, he'd close them off.

The security team that Thous had bought were waiting for him like the missions specs he'd read on the flight over were waiting in a solid line. Their posture spoke military, which was a blessing. He didn't trust civilian security for anything – witness the dead guards around the apartment. All said and told, he had six men and three women, and he nodded to them as he stepped out of his car. "Report?" he asked, looking around for the captain.

A slim and leanly muscular brunette woman stepped forward. "All standard perimeter checks have been performed, sir. We replaced the security system on the house with our own, and swept for bombs twice." She spoke crisply and she didn't waste time; Max approved.

"Good. What security tech did you use?" he asked, locking the car behind him. The team fell in step behind him as the leader stepped next to him briskly.

"Bio-tech scanners at the entrance so that only someone cleared can enter. There are backup codes to learn as well. When night falls motion sensors automatically activate over the exteriors of the windows, and the perimeter fence is electrically charged with lethal voltage. We have state-of-the-art motion-capturing video cameras on two different backup systems to decrease the chance of the video stream being cut or looped, and the lawn has periodic sensors to let us know when people are moving," she listed.

"Standard fire and emergency protection systems?" he asked absently as he roved the grounds.

"Of course, sir," she confirmed.

"Very good," he nodded. "Your name, commander?"

"Frakes, sir. Sharon Frakes," she answered.

"You and your men appear to have military training," Max observed.

"I have five years experience with the service, sir. I did two tours of Afghanistan before I was sent home. Most of the men and women I recruited were from my unit," she confirmed. He nodded and dismissed her, and she and her agents disappeared to their various security watchpoints. He wondered at the story; from the way that she'd described it it sounded as if they may have been dishonorably discharged. Either way, they were professionals, and he appreciated military experience on big jobs like these over anyone else, particularly when such a well-planned and decently executed kidnapping attempt had already gone down.

On the plane ride to Harbor Island, Max had reviewed the photographs and report of the Mayar Institution security team about the incident, and it troubled him more than he'd ever admit to. Whatever Thous was dabbling in must be something either dangerous, expensive, or both, and neither ingredient of that volatile mixture was a good thing when it was attracting the kind of enemies that could nearly get away with the high-flying stunts the would-be kidnappers had attempted.

His current position wasn't the most well-guarded, either, much as his rich client would like to believe it was. Harbor Island was a pristine little man-made island just off the southern coast of Virginia, a rich and ritzy place that only had five houses on its grounds with an eye toward the ultra-rich seeking privacy and security. The trouble with this approach was that much of the interior of the island was lush woodland, full of hiding places, and that any area that wasn't occupied by the house was an easy landing point for an infiltration or assassination team by boat or by NightHawk, the newest stealth helicopters the enemies of the United States were pushing out by the hundreds.

Still, speculation about one's enemy only made him more fearsome than he truly was. The kidnappers were just men, and they died like anyone else does. Max had faced, fought, and defeated hundreds of enemies like this over the years, and he wasn't about to let this one assignment to protect a rich man's family bring him down. He still needed to inspect the rest of the grounds and the insides of the mansion to familiarize himself with his surroundings before he met the Thous family, who were supposed to be on their way already. He frowned at the time stamp; being rushed might make him miss something, but it was the job to please the client and Thous himself had insisted on speed and efficiency.

Max snapped to it.

* * *

Benjamin watched the countryside roll past the windows like a kaleidoscope of green, listening to some internet DJ's remix of Mozart's "Requiem" that he'd found surfing the net, trying to block out the rest of the world. His father was on the phone, of course, to one of his endless strings of duty, moving millions of dollars from this account to that account. Arielle had given up trying to engage either of them in conversation and was reading a book. The way that her hair flitted over the pages made Benjamin's heart hurt.

It hadn't always been like this between he and his father. He remembered back when his father was still only running pharmaceuticals. He and his mother had always been closer, but Jack was still there in his life for hugs and guy time, when they had their first three story near a lake that was good to fish in. Anne, Benjamin's mother, used to love that lake. She would put together lunch and gather Benjamin to her and row out toward the middle, where she would bring copies of _Alice in Wonderland_ and _Peter Pan_, telling Benjamin all about the mermaids that lived in the lake that only came out at night when he wasn't looking to protect them all from storms.

Anne was a gentle woman, with soft hands and an even softer voice. There was always something ethereal about her, almost like she was from faerie and they were not, though Benjamin had inherited her white-blonde hair and soft complexion. She used to write poems that she would gather together and self-publish, because she liked to have them bound in little books but was too shy to try to send them off to an actual publishing firm.

It was her despair that ate at Benjamin the most as he grew up. Jack had become consumed with money, and then with his political career. Anne had despised the fake, plastic people who came over for parties to their house that was once a sanctuary; in fact, she hated the entire charade so much that she finally put her foot down and insisted that Jack buy a second house, which he did, so that she could maintain the house by the lake as a family sanctuary, though Jack spent less and less time there. It wasn't until later that Benjamin found out that his mother was dying of lung cancer, and that his father's money had been spent trying to cure her.

But he and his father had started to differ on everything by the time Benjamin was a teenager – religion, politics, sports. The first time his father had caught Benjamin in the woods behind their house with one of the neighborhood boys, Jack had beat the hell out of him, and Anne and Jack had fought for hours. Afterward, Jack tried to have Benjamin spend less time with his mother, but there was really nothing he could do. Jack and Benjamin didn't speak to each other for long periods, as Anne wilted. She used to tell Benjamin that she would go through the looking glass like Alice, to Wonderland, and that when he was ready he would go to join her and they would have more adventures together, but those dreams died with her.

When Jack held a press conference after her death and used it to get reelected, they fought bitterly, and, as Jack smoked, Benjamin blamed him for his mother's death. When those words left his mouth, his father's hand struck him across the face so hard that he'd hit the wall, cracking open a spot on his cheek that had left a small, hairline scar when he'd hit silver filigreed trim. The two of them hadn't spoken a civil word since, and that policy had stretched to Arielle, until...well, Benjamin wasn't quite sure how she fit into his life now. She certainly wasn't what he'd first thought her to be.

As they approached the mansion, Benjamin pulled his headphones out and switched his iPod off, while Arielle put her book away in one of her bags and stretched, grabbing her water bottle out of the minibar and finishing it off. There were only six homes on the small island, each of them equidistant from the airport with their own private beaches, so that those rich enough to afford the homes could ensure complete privacy. There was a large clubhouse with its own golf course in the center of the island that held all of the electricity generators and everything else needed for the essentials of life. Benjamin always valued the privacy of the island because he could usually go down to the beach and swim in the ocean for hours with no one trying to speak to him.

When they got out of the car, his father's security goons were waiting for them. Jack strode out of the car to snap something at them, and Benjamin rolled his eyes. Once his father had smoothed his ruffled feathers and assured himself that his lackeys were suitably impressed by his money, power and position, he took Arielle's hand to show her the house, leaving Benjamin on his own to deal with the luggage. Scowling, Benjamin turned to the trunk and the driver to start overseeing the luggage, when he heard a deep, husky voice and he turned to see the newcomer...and froze.

Striding toward them was what looked like an eastern European supermodel, with a face that looked like it belonged on a Roman coin. He was dressed in a dark suit like an FBI agent, though the way he carried himself it looked like was military. He took a pair of sunglasses off as he addressed the female leader of the guards about something, and turned his back to Benjamin, displaying what looked like a magnificent backside behind his black slacks. Shaking himself irritably, Benjamin turned back to the driver to keep organizing the luggage. The _last_ thing he needed was his father to catch him checking out the help.

"Are you Benjamin Thous?" the man asked from behind him. Benjamin turned to catch the man's dark brown eyes, and smiled a tad self-deprecatingly as he inclined his head. "Good. Let's get you inside the house," he said, motioning for Benjamin to follow him. Benjamin had half a mind to ignore him, but he'd had enough excitement for a lifetime and if his father's paranoia was any indication following security orders might be good for his health. "My name is Max Rowe; I'll be handling the security around here."

"Sounds lovely," Benjamin commented, smirking slightly. Max sent him a blank look, and Benjamin sighed. Of course, he'd be a mindless government goon. "It's quite the view around here, isn't it?" he persisted, somewhat enjoying the fact that Mr. Rowe was starting to look quite confused.

"It's far too open. I'd feel more comfortable if there were less windows," he said finally.

"But then how would we be able to watch our able-bodied security team handling our security?" Benjamin asked, smiling at him sunnily.

They reached the front doors before Max could think up a reply, and Benjamin smiled as he took his carry-on bag from the driver and said "I can take it from here," before he shut the door behind him and headed upstairs toward his bedroom. He sighed as he entered it, the smile fading from his lips. He and his mother had decorated this room their very first summer out here, in light blues and whites, with whispery white curtains over the windows. His mother had picked out the color scheme.

"This way, you'll never have a cloudy day while we're here," she said. They had put in a picture window, with a deep red cushion on it. He'd spent more summers than he could count coming in cold and wet from the ocean to curl up on that seat, reading for hours until she would come in with fresh lemonade she'd made from the bitter lemons from the back garden. There were bookshelves in here with dusty volumes that he hadn't read since childhood. He brushed his fingers over them reverently. _Grimm's Fairy Tales_. _Edith Hamilton's Mythology_. _The Mists of Avalon_. _The Neverending Story_.

"It's good that you remember her so well, you know," Arielle said softly from the door. Benjamin turned to stare at her, startled out of his reverie. She was looking at a picture of him and his mother, when he was a small child, sitting in the rocking chair, reading the _Little House on the Prairie_ series. "I don't remember my mother at all. She died when I was a small child."

"I'm sorry," Benjamin said honestly. She looked up at him and smiled a little.

"I'm going to see what I can rustle up in the pantry for lunch. If you're hungry, you can always come join me. Either way, I'll pop a plate of it in the fridge so you can have some later," she said, turning to head out of the room and leave him alone to unpack.

"Thank you," he said softly.

"You're welcome," she called, letting him know that she had heard it. He didn't have to ask whether or not his father had left without saying goodbye. That was something he'd gotten used to when he was sixteen. He turned back to unpacking his clothes and his computer, and he left the books where the were.

Some time later, he wandered into the kitchen, where Arielle had set her laptop up in the breakfast nook overlooking the rear garden. "The lemon trees need to be pruned," she noted as he came in. "I should talk to the groundskeepers here." The comment was so _like_ his mother that Benjamin froze, his heart twisting. "Is something wrong, Ben?" she asked, catching the look on his face.

"Benjamin," he corrected her automatically, and she winced, which confused him, until he realized that she thought he was being difficult. "I never told you why I hate being called Ben, did I?" he asked, turning his back to her so he didn't have to look her in the eyes. He dug in the fridge and found the plate of food she'd promised him.

"No," she said after a moment.

"My mother read 'The Curious Case of Benjamin Button' while she was pregnant with me, so that's what she named me," Benjamin said. "She hated nicknames. She said that they were lazy shortenings by people too unimaginative to name their child something unique. So she never let anyone call me Ben. Just Benjamin." She'd made him peanut butter and honey sandwiches and a salad made of fresh garden greens. There were radishes on top, his favorite vegetable. He was genuinely surprised that she had remembered.

"I'm sorry, Benjamin," she said, a way of reaching out, he supposed.

"Thank you for lunch," he responded, reaching back, and when he left the kitchen she continued working on her laptop with a smile on her face.

After lunch, Benjamin plugged his laptop in and checked his emails. There weren't many, thankfully, but he responded to the ones that he wanted to respond to, and then piddled surfing the net. Annoyed with the lack of anything to do, and not wanting in particular to _do_ anything, he finally decided to just don his trunks and head to the beach. He slipped out of the side door and headed down the little sandy path that led from the lawns to the private beach, with the pristine white sand and little picnic tables and a gazebo. He left his towel in the gazebo and kicked off his flip-flops as he waded into the gentle pounding of the waves, letting the cool Atlantic carry him further out into the sea.

There was nothing better than the rocking of the waves to rob one of their thoughts, and Benjamin lost himself in the lapping of the surf on the shore, on the soft shushing of the waves as he slipped in and out of the water, his ears enveloped by the ghostly silence of the sea, closing his eyes against the stinging salt. Once the cool water was beginning to feel quite cold, he kicked himself around and scissored toward shore, his strokes strong and sure from the hours he spent in and out of pools on the swim team in the academy. Reaching the shore again, Benjamin trekked back to the gazebo, stripping off his trunks and wiping the sand from his feet as he reached for his towel, then spinning in shock when he heard someone clear their throat not far from him.

Standing five feet away, outside the gazebo, was Max Rowe, the gorgeous security guard. Scowling, Benjamin wrapped his towel around his hips and talked toward him. "What the hell are you _doing_ down here, you creep?" he snapped, poking his finger toward the guard.

"What are _you_ doing down here?" Rowe snapped back rudely, shocking Benjamin into silence with the lack of gentility in his tone. "There's a hit out on your _life_, you little idiot! Slipping down to the beach on your own in the middle of nowhere isn't the brightest idea, don't you think?"

"Screw you, asshole," Benjamin said coldly. "I don't have to take orders from you."

"I work for your father, not for you, you spoiled little brat," Rowe said impatiently. "Now, if you're finished flashing the beach, can we go back to the house? Or do I need to hold your hand and offer you a gold-wrapped candy bar?"

"I can manage," Benjamin said quietly, and turned away so that the man wouldn't see the blind rage on his face. It wasn't just that people didn't usually talk to him that way, it was that...could he even argue with what the guy had said? It _had_ been stupid to forget something like that. And all of the memories of his mother that this damn house was bringing up was making his head hurt, if not his heart. He wondered what she would have to say if even the security guards were calling him spoiled brat now. He got dressed quickly, all thoughts of Rowe's good looks firmly out of his mind. The guy was a jerk, Benjamin decided, stuffing his swimming trunks in the bag his dry clothes had been in.

"Are you done yet, Benny?" Max drawled from behind him, and Benjamin spun around.

"It's _Benjamin_, and you can stop talking to me, you damn rent a cop," he snarled, finally snapping. He had the brief victory of seeing the slight surprise flit across Max's face at the sheer venom in his tone, before he turned away from the infuriating man and headed back up the path toward the house a pace that could almost be running, but he wouldn't run away from this man. He wouldn't give him the satisfaction.

For the next week, things settled into more or less of a routine around the island. He and Arielle had gotten to the point where spending time with her wasn't so bad. Sometimes she'd want to do something cheesy and family oriented, like card games or Chinese checkers, which wasn't so bad. But she didn't make him talk if he didn't want to, which was a boon. They both loved to read, so they'd spend homey enough evenings in the living room, lounging on the couches and paging through their respective favorites.

Benjamin spent his time rediscovering old landmarks of his mother's, like the tree they'd carved their names in and the bench they'd had the groundskeepers make for the garden, and the lemon trees his mother liked to grow. His mother had loved the most bitter, acidic fruits, like lemon and pomegranates, and they used to make her mouth pucker, until he or his dad would kiss the look away. He was accompanied, more often than not, by Max Rowe, who seemed determined to become his new shadow. Although Benjamin didn't like him any more, he did respect him; the man had a bitingly sarcastic tongue that he never failed to turn on Benjamin if Benjamin started to get on his nerves with his comments.

Despite the security, it really felt like just one more time on the island, until their first Saturday night. It had been a normal, ordinary day, leading up to an uneventful evening, until the security teams had freaked out about a perimeter sensor and come crashing into the house. Benjamin and Arielle had been herded into Jack's office, which only had one window that was too high up to allow intruders through. Max and Sharon Frakes, the leader of the guard contingency, stayed with them while the rest of the team went through the motions and routines of checking for intruders...until the comm set went dead on the third watchman.

"What does that mean?" Arielle asked softly, clenching Benjamin's hand in hers. Benjamin turned to Max. Despite his personal feelings on the man, Max seemed to take the whole protector thing serious as a heart attack, and Benjamin had the wild notion that he was safer in the man's presence.

"It means that someone's gotten through. We're going to stay right here, and you two are going to hide behind that desk, so that Frakes and I can unholster our guns," Max said calmly, not bothering to lie to them, which Benjamin respected, oddly. His ears were ringing as nauseous memories of the break-in at the apartment started to rise. "Hey," Max said softly, and his rough fingers were lightly on Benjamin's chin, making him shiver. "It's gonna be alright, okay, kid?" His voice was soft, and his deodorant was spicy, Benjamin noted absently.

"I'm not a kid," he said, automatically sniping.

"Of course not," Max said with a smirk, and Benjamin forced himself to drop Max's warm, coffee-brown gaze and hide behind the table with Arielle like a good boy. Max made sure that they were both down there, then turned toward the door.

* * *

Max had no idea why he felt like he needed to protect that kid so bad. It was the job, sure, but he'd had hundreds of jobs just like this. There was just...something. Maybe it was that Benjamin reminded him so much of himself at that age. Or the way he couldn't figure out if the guy loved this house or hated it. He respected the sharp-edged tongue Benjamin hid in that aristocratic mouth of his, and it was always a change of pace to meet someone who could keep up with him verbally...but it was more than that. Deeper. Stronger.

He couldn't relax until he'd checked that Mrs. Thous and Benjamin were behind the desk, safe, twice. Frakes was shooting him a look, and he nodded to her, trying to reassure her. If this job was the same professionals who'd done the apartment, they both needed to be on their game to get through this alive. He drew his gun and trained it on the door, setting himself partially behind a chair. It would provide crap cover if someone came in shooting, but it might slow a bullet down enough to do only partial damage and provide him the opportunity to shoot them between the eyes.

Frake moved closer to the door, setting herself enough to the side that she could catch it if it swung open suddenly. Max strained his ears, hearing a tell-tale creak as a foot stepped stealthily on the old wooden floors of the mansion, and he shot his eyes at Frakes. She looked at him with a question in her eyes – _did you hear it too?_ He moved one of his hands and shot a sign-language command at her: _Get yourself ready_. He trained his gun to about chest height in the average man or woman and cocked his gun as Frakes followed suit.

The door crashed open suddenly, swinging toward Frakes, who caught it quickly and slammed it back toward the foot that had kicked it open, making the man who'd kicked it stumble back and curse loudly. Max didn't need anything else; he raised the gun slightly and fired two shots. There was a sickening thudding noise through the door and the man screamed in pain, hitting the ground with a thud. There was the sound of running feet in the hall, and then the wounded man was thrown through the door, making Frakes jump out of the way, as two more men came barreling in, guns blazing.

Max ducked behind his chair and rolled from under it, dodging a close bullet as one of the men zeroed in on him, and he shot the first clear target he had: his goon's Achilles tendon, making the man drop to the ground like a stone as he clutched his leg and screamed in pain. Frakes had engaged in hand-to-hand with hers, their guns on the ground, as his large, burly hand closed on her windpipe. Max cursed; the intruder was twice as large as Frakes and he'd gotten the drop on her, there was no way she'd fight him off on her own. He jumped to his feet and dropped a round in his target's head, right between the eyes, cutting of his screams abruptly, and slammed his fist into a particular nerve ending in the man's back, making him howl in pain and jump away from Frakes, whose face was turning purple. She fell to the ground, gasping for air.

The man used a trained move and kicked Max's gun out of his hands, to which Max launched a kick of his own and knocked the guy away from him. They circled each other warily. Max sneered at the man. He was big brute, but he moved fast. He was dressed in generic black clothing and a ski mask that could have come from Wal-Mart; he wore no distinguishing marks, which didn't surprise Max – no professional would wear anything that could identify him while on the job. The fear that Max had was that the idiot would try to kill himself rather than give up his employer, which is what one of the men at the apartment did.

"Sir," Frakes gasped out from the ground. "His hands—"

Max moved in, leading with a series of swift punches, trying to get under the man's guard, but the intruder blocked his jabs and threw a vicious haymaker that would have laid Max flat had he not ducked underneath it. He slugged the brute in the gut, and slammed his knee upward, catching him in his doubled-over chest, but he didn't expect the resulting headbutt that slammed the back of the brute's head into his forehead, making his world dissolve in white spots before he was knocked violently away. He blinked, trying to clear his head, as the man withdrew a wickedly sharp knife before going straight for him.

Frakes leapt up from the floor and smacked the man's wrist nerves sharply, making him reflexively drop the knife. The intruder knocked her down again, but Max was getting up. Cursing, the man moved for a pill from a sleeve pocket, pulling it toward his mouth. "NO!" Max snarled, going for him, but he was going to be too late...

Just then, Benjamin Thous popped out of nowhere and, before anyone could stop him, brought his father's desk computer monitor down on the thug's head as hard as he possibly could. The lean kid had to have more muscle than he looked, because the guard, turned woozily toward him and made a pained noise, before Benjamin raised the monitor again and clubbed the intruder over the head with it again. The thug dropped to the ground like a stone, breathing hard, the suicide pill rolling uselessly onto the carpet, out of the man's reach. Benjamin dropped the cracked LCD monitor to the ground, breathing heavily and staring at the guard with something like disbelief on his face.

Angrily stomping on the pill, Max felt his heart swell and rise toward his throat. Unable to even articulate to himself the source of his rage, he grabbed Benjamin by his shoulders and shook him. "What the _hell_ was that?" he snarled.

"What?" Benjamin asked, confused, looking hurt, which Max didn't like.

"You were supposed to stay behind the desk! You can't put yourself in danger like that! Not ever!" Max snapped angrily. "I can't protect you if you're playing Superman, okay?"

"I was just trying to help..." Benjamin faltered, and Max cursed at himself viciously.

"I know! I'm sorry; I shouldn't have yelled at you," he said, clenching his eyes closed. "I just...don't like to see you putting yourself in danger, alright?"

"Sure," Benjamin said softly, but he was still staring at the guy on the ground. Max sighed. Benjamin was going to have to talk to someone about all of this, after both of his living spaces were broken into, before he stopped trusting home security altogether. Speaking of security, he was going to have to see just how the hell these three had made it through the safeguards around the house.

"Look, why don't you two sit here while I radio the group and see what's what? Frakes, keep your gun on the door. If it's anyone but me on the other side, shoot first and ask questions later," he ordered, keeping his hand on Benjamin's shoulder as he reassured himself that the kid was alright. No, not a kid. Benjamin was nineteen, a young man. He sighed, made himself leave the room, but he checked back to see that both of his charges were alright once more before he started calling on the radio for help.

* * *

"That was really brave, Benjamin," Arielle said softly from behind him. They were in the kitchen, where they'd been released to after Max had assured them that they were alright. Benjamin's cheeks still felt stung from how he'd blushed in anger and hurt when the man had yelled at him. Could he even help without screwing something up? "Stupid, but brave," she continued, putting some cold soda in front of him.

"I couldn't just...watch them break into our home again," Benjamin said softly. But he wasn't meeting her gaze.

"Look, I know that Mr. Rowe was really hard on you, but he's just concerned for your safety. Which is good; it means that he's good at his job, and that we're going to get through this. Somehow," she sighed. She sat down next to him with some wine and they both took a drink, staring out wordlessly at the beautiful night sky through windows that suddenly seemed all too threatening.

Somewhere out there, Max was checking the security. Benjamin sighed, and excused himself to go to bed. When he got to his room, however, he opened up his laptop. Plugging in a search engine, he typed up "Max Rowe" into the search bar and hit ENTER.

"Alright, Max," he said, almost angrily. "Let's see just who the hell you are." When the results came back in, Benjamin leaned forward, then frowned, first in irritation, and then in surprise. A suspicion was forming in his mind, as he got up and looked down toward the lawn, catching sight of Rowe as he issued orders to his men, his white teeth gleaming in the moonlight like a vampire. Benjamin closed the curtains before he shut his computer off, knowing where to find the answers – or at least some of them. There were some problems that had no answers, like how the hell he was supposed to sleep tonight in a house that was once safe.

**A/N:** I'm pretty satisfied with it. There are things brewing, and it's going along where it's supposed to. I keep having this line from Sue Sylvester of _Glee_ (played by the intimidatingly hilarious Jane Lynch) playing through my head: "When I [heard about something on the show], I was aroused...and then _furious_." I love that show. It's so random. But, I'm doing something that I've just started doing on my other stories, and it's fun, so here is the teaser for next update!

**Next time on _Dollhouse: Lonely Souls_**

After the Paul Ballard Interlude, the action is on as Sierra/Raven and Echo/Taffy's team invade the fearsome Mayar Institute, but will they find more questions than they do answers? And what happens when one doll goes off-mission...and there are no handlers to save the day? Just another explosive engagement from the Dollhouse, even as DeWitt begins to prepare herself for the next step in the deadly chess game she's found herself in...


	4. Interlude 1: Paul Ballard

**A/N:** Okay, the purpose of these is to take a small break from the main action of the story, and to work Paul Ballard into the story because I love him and he deserves some screen time. These interludes (there will be three) are going to be very short, and somewhat dark, but I won't abandon them because I love me some Paul Ballard – and that's twice now that Tahmoh Penikett has taken a character that I wasn't sure about at first and turned him into someone I love (first Helo on _Battlestar Galactica_, of course).

In any case, I'm posting this with the previous chapter so that the next update will start right back up with the main action in the world of _Lonely Souls_.

_Dollhouse_

Lonely Souls

Interlude: Paul Ballard

I graduated from Quantico at the top of my class. My father had been a police officer all his life. I was a good shot by the time I was twelve, a cocky son of a bitch by the time I graduated and was given my badge as an official agent of the FBI. The look on my mother's face was almost enough to make up for the empty seat next to her. Shot down by a junkie strung out on heroine, unable to see me graduate. I hugged her hard, though, and tried not to let her see how much it hurt that he wasn't able to see this.

Soon after I married Sarah, and everything was alright for awhile. She was strong through the rocky years, which was the first three. I know that I have a penchant to get caught up in a case, but she stuck with it, through the craziness. My very first arrest, she and I celebrated for a weekend. That weekend was the best one in our marriage, like a second honeymoon. But as we grew apart, so did my job. I'd lose more cases than I gained, as she started throwing words out like "useless" and "failure," and "expanding her options." I guess when the sex went I was prepared for the break-up.

The Dollhouse assignment was the last straw for her, I guess. When I didn't turn it down, she'd finally had enough. I wasn't prepared for the fact that she was cheating on me, though. I hate dishonesty I think more than anything, and that was maybe why the Dollhouse and the plight of the dolls hit me so hard when I heard about it and thought about it – the fact that they had been lied to in order to get them to sign their lives over to ruthless technology, only so that they could go out and lie to everyone else.

When I set up my first Dollhouse map in the living room, Sarah came in to tell me it was over, after the fight we'd had when I found out that she was screwing Lennie, a guy we'd met in the bar downtown. I didn't even turn around, but asked her to put her ring on the counter and get her stuff out and not come back. She didn't like that. I think she wanted the fight, but I didn't give it to her. I waited till she was _out_ of the apartment before I broke down and went on a three day drinking binge.

Why am I thinking about all of this? Because I'm naked and ashamed in my own bed. I look at the beautiful woman next to me and feel my heart go cold with horror and self-disgust, even as my erection stirs as her breasts rise and fall with steady breath. _Oh, Mellie_, I think and my heart wants to break, but I won't let it, because that was a lie. And I hate dishonesty, oh, do I hate it in a relationship, and everything that this relationship was is a lie, and now that I know that...what do I do? I can't keep doing this, keep making love to her like everything is okay when I know that it isn't.

Mellie isn't real, she's a doll, one placed in my life in order to keep me from finding the Dollhouse, and still I sleep with her – one of my victims, one of the ones I've been trying to save, in my bed every night. The thought is enough for the gorge to rise in my throat. But I try to tell myself that it's also for my own safety; Mellie is a sleeper-assassin, and with the flip of a switch she'll turn from a quiet, lovely and caring person into a cold-blooded killer. She'd already killed a man in my apartment.

And now she was killing me. Or maybe I am. I don't know anymore.

There are many things I don't know anymore. But I watch the rise and fall of her chest, and I am comforted by her life next to mine. I want to rip my own heart out of my chest, but I can't do that. I've got work to do. And Mellie, oh, my sweet Mellie...you're going to help me.

I bow my head, but I don't know if I'm praying or sobbing. She reaches out restlessly in sleep and I allow myself to pillow my head on her breasts, and I hate myself. But I don't move away, not for the night or the even colder morning that follows.


End file.
